Pesticide Action Network UK - Our Vision for UK Agriculture Outside the EU

Pesticides News

No.104 August 2016

Brexit – Dark Days Ahead or a Bright New Future for UK Agriculture?

The UK’s decision to leave the EU has big implications for British agriculture. In this article, PAN UK’s Director, Keith Tyrell, explores the threats and opportunities of Brexit and sets out PAN UK’s vision for a more sustainable farming system.

Where We Find Ourselves In June, a narrow, but clear majority of the UK electorate voted to leave the EU. This decision has dramatic implications for all areas of UK policy with over 12,000 EU laws and regulatory instruments set to be replaced or re-negotiated.

The UK agricultural sector is heavily influenced by EU policy. Not only is it subject to EU laws – including the Habitats, Water Framework, and Sustainable Use [of pesticides] Directives – but it is also dependent on the convoluted and flawed subsidy regime that is the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

Wheat field below Oak tress on farm in Linolcshire, (photo: PAN-UK) Unravelling this package is fraught with risks, but it also presents a unique opportunity to shape UK Her comments on agriculture prior to has lost over 97% of its wildflower agriculture for a generation to come. her appointment were limited to a meadows and nearly 121,000km of Formal negotiations on Brexit have misguided proposal for hedgerows have disappeared (in spite yet to start, and the shape of the UK’s environmental trading certificates: “It of 30,000km new hedgerows being future relationship with the EU – and would make so much more sense if planted). Over the last 40 years, our with other global trading partners – is those with the big fields do the sheep, most vulnerable species have still unclear. This uncertainty has and those with the hill farms do the declined by 77%, and wild pollinators created a policy void and groups are butterflies,” Mrs Leadsom explained are in retreat: three of our 25 native jostling to occupy the space and earlier this year. Under this approach, bumblebee species are now extinct, presenting competing visions for the big, productive farms should be and eight more are suffering major future of UK farming and the exempted from environmental range contractions. countryside. management requirements, which There is little doubt that intensive would be left to smaller, marginal One vision is for the UK to tear up agriculture and associated habitat farms instead. The logical conclusion environmental rules and switch to an change is the driving factor behind of this approach would be to turn even more intensive model of these declines, but agrochemicals are huge areas over to intensive agriculture. The EU’s pesticide also a big part of the problem. Since monocrops while destroying regulation system in particular has 1990, the total UK land area treated biodiversity on a massive scale. come under attack with the National by pesticides has almost doubled Measures to improve landscapes, Farmers’ Union (NFU) complaining from 45million Ha to 80million Ha. plant hedgerows and support bird about “excessive use of the populations would be scrapped across Pesticides have direct impacts on precautionary principle” and stepping biodiversity – many are toxic to vast swathes of the country. up its attempts to water down insects, birds, fish amphibians and restrictions. mammals and exposure can cause Protection From Pesticides Meanwhile, we have a new lethal poisonings. Broad spectrum In fact, our countryside needs more, Environment Secretary: Andrea insecticides, for example, can destroy not less, protection.

The statistics are Leadsom, a former banker who was beneficial insects as well as the pests stark: Over the past 80 years, the UK they are targeting. Even sub-lethal prominent in the Leave campaign. www.pan-uk.org

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Pesticides News doses can harm nervous systems and affect behaviour which can make individuals and communities more vulnerable to other threats.

No.104 August 2016 between 53% and 92%. These farmland specialists are known to be affected by pesticide use.

Meanwhile pesticide runoff continues Pesticides can also affect food to pollute our water courses. Every availability – insecticides reduce year, water companies spend millions populations for insect-eating birds, of pounds removing pesticides from while herbicides destroy native plants our drinking water. In 2014, around a and habitats and reduce food sources quarter of the UK’s drinking water for animals that depend on floral protected areas were at risk of failing resources and seeds. In the last 25 legal standards because of pesticides. years, herbicide use has increased by Pesticides are also a serious threat to 75%. It is no co-incidence that human health. Many pesticides in use farmland bird populations have today have been linked serious collapsed. Since the 1970s, the grey illnesses including asthma, autism, partridge, corn bunting, and birth defects, diabetes, Parkinson’s yellowhammer have all declined by

and Alzheimer’s diseases, and cancer.

Scientific research from the US over last 5-10 years has clearly linked high pesticide exposure in farming families and rural residents near treated fields, with increased incidence of certain types of cancer, other chronic health problems and of reproductive problems and a host of developmental disorders in children.

This kind of detailed, long term epidemiological research is lacking in UK but there is no room for complacency that current pesticide controls work well to prevent harmful levels of exposure, especially as there

PAN UK's Five Steps Towards a More Sustainable Farming System.

I. Use subsidies to promote greener agricultural practices, support farmers and protect our countryside The UK should move away from a system of flat rate acreage subsidy to one that supports practices that enhance biodiversity. Growing a wider variety of food, with more mixed agriculture, wider crop rotation and lower field size will create more resilient and sustainable farming systems better able to cope with and help tackle climate change. There need not be a conflict between productivity and sustainability – it is possible to have both.

II. Establish strong regulatory controls on pesticides including targets and incentives to cut pesticide use It is possible to cut pesticide use while maintaining yields and profits, but farmers need help and incentives to do so. The UK should introduce a national target to cut pesticide use, ban the most Highly Hazardous Pesticides and promote less harmful and non-chemical methods of managing pests, diseases and weeds.

III. Support farmers wanting to adopt more environmentally friendly practices – including organic – with training and practical research Invest in research to develop and improve sustainable farming approaches and provide training and advice to those who want help to adopt them.

IV. Support diverse, family and small-scale farms Target subsidies to support a thriving and diverse farming sector by giving small and medium scale farmers – not just big agribusiness – a greater share of the subsidies and help them to access markets. This will encourage young people to stay in the industry and reverse the exodus from the sector

V. Support the organic sector to grow Organic farmers in the UK receive much less support than their continental peers, and as a result organic farming only accounts for about 2% of UK production, compared to as much as 10% in some European countries. The new system should provide more support to help farmers convert to organic and and drive market demand for organic products.

www.pan-uk.org

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Pesticides News

No.104 August 2016

is virtually no enforcement or monitoring of pesticide use practices.

sustainable system for the next generation of farmers.

What is perhaps most galling is that the system which allows this destruction and harm does not even work economically for farmers: Around 80% of CAP subsidies go to just 20% of landowners – the biggest ones, including many corporate enterprises. For the rest, farming is of marginal or uncertain profitability.

Incomes are low and farmgate prices often fail to cover the cost of production. Hundreds of farmers leave the industry every year: around a third of dairy farms have closed in the last decade alone. Of those that that remain, many are forced to supplement their income with second jobs or diversified activities. UK Farming is in crisis, and has been for some time.

Once the UK leaves the EU, the CAP will no longer apply. Brexit has given us the opportunity to replace the CAP with a system that benefits both farmers and biodiversity and introduce a model that ties subsidies more effectively to social and environmental goods.

To achieve this, the UK must move away from reliance on high levels of agrochemical inputs and fossil fuels and switch to farming methods based on agroecological science and which make better use of ecological interactions and natural resources. In this way, we can convert British agriculture to a safer, fairer and more

Keith Tyrell, Director PAN-UK

The CAP currently delivers more than £3 billion in support to UK farmers. It is an essential lifeline for many and makes up more than half of many farmers’ incomes. But less than 20% of this funding supports environmental and social measures and the vast majority of the funds are simply doled out based on acreage – the more land you own, the more money you get.

PAN UK is calling for a refocusing of support to help farming communities and the environment (see our five Our Vision But it doesn’t have to be like this. We point plan below). We want to see subsidies maintained, but targeted at at PAN UK have a different vision those who need it most and rewarding for the future of UK agriculture. We farmers who work with the want to see an agricultural system which allows farmers to make a good environment. living, but at same time supports As the Government charts a course them to grow more sustainably; A out of the EU, Ministers must consult system which makes it easier for widely to come up with the best farmers to make space for the option for the UK: its people, environment; and which helps them economy and environment. PAN UK to reduce their reliance on pesticides. stands ready to be part of that process We want a food and farming system to create a truly sustainable farming that generates extra employment, system. with more rewarding jobs and better Please get in touch if you can help conditions for farm workers, and support this work. improves social and economic welfare in rural areas.

Contacts

www.pan-uk.org

Keith@pan-uk.org

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